The present invention relates in general to a method and apparatus for shuffling playing cards and the like and, more particularly, to such a method and apparatus for the continuous shuffling of discarded playing cards into a supply of shuffled playing cards contained within a storage carousel from which playing cards to be dealt during game play may be randomly and selectively withdrawn under the programmed control of a computer or the like.
Today, there are many established forms of legal gambling wherein various types of card games require the use of several decks during game play. One of the more popular forms of gambling found at most casinos is the card game referred to as blackjack. In the game of blackjack, the dealer often uses four to eight shuffled decks from which he deals during the course of game play. The great number of individual playing cards to be handled makes it almost impossible to shuffle these four to eight decks in one single operation. In addition, there is also the difficulty in providing complete randomness to the individual playing cards such that the cards cannot be dealt in the same order or sequence as in the previous game play. To this end, most casinos have established a shuffling routine for these decks to insure their complete randomness before being used for the next game play. However, this shuffling routine is often time consuming such that approximately fifteen percent of game play is considered nonplayable dead time. As a result of this dead time, a considerable loss in gambling revenue is denied to the casinos, as well as, significant interruption in game play for the participants.
Further, the often used casino procedure of continuously dealing cards during game play until the four to eight decks are exhausted before reshuffling the discarded cards has resulted in the use by the participants of a technique commonly referred to as card counting. This technique of card counting has been of great concern to the casinos as potentially giving the participant in the game of blackjack an unfair advantage during certain periods of game play. In fact, this problem has been considered so serious by the casinos that often a participant who is suspected of card counting is often banned from the casino. In consideration of the foregoing, there is disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,310,160 and 3,589,730 devices for shuffling playing cards and the like. However, these prior art card shuffling devices are not adaptable for providing the necessary randomness when shuffling four to eight decks of discarded playing cards as required by the casinos or of preventing the aforementioned problem of card counting in the game of blackjack.
Accordingly, it can be appreciated that there is an unsolved need for a method and apparatus for the continuous shuffling of discarded playing cards which signficantly reduces the dead time encountered in the traditional shuffling of four to eight decks by the dealer and which makes card counting in the game of blackjack by the participant virtually impossible.